This morning my triathlon training group did our first open water practice swim, in Lake Anza in the hills above Berkeley. The day did not get off to an auspicious start, when heavy summer fog rolled in (not till June! okay) and blotted out the sun. It was 52 degrees out when I got up, and the sun was just peaking above heavy fog when we met at the lake. Luckily for me someone brought a spare wetsuit for me to wear. That made all the difference in terms of staying warm.

I am not a particularly good swimmer, but I’ve been working hard to improve upon that over the past few years. The fact that today I actually PUT MY FACE into a MURKY BROWN LAKE and swam, like a real swimmer, mind you, crawl strokes, not just a doggy paddle, demonstrates that I’ve come a long way. Oh, I had all the requisite swim lessons as a child, and as a result, I’ve always been perfectly comfortable splashing around in the water, even deep water, and I could doggy paddle myself wherever I wanted to go, pretty much indefinitely. But I never really took to swimming, proper. Three years ago I decided that I could maintain some cardio fitness over the long Chicago winters if I learned to swim. At the time I was working directly across the street from the University of Chicago gym/pool (dude, I almost just wrote aquarium, which I think says a lot about how I feel about swimming). At lunch hours the pool was enormous, and empty. I often had the pool to myself, 10 lanes and hardly the sound of another splash besides me. The winter sunlight would stream in the floor-to-ceiling windows, onto the water’s surface, where it would bend slightly as it illuminated a path to the bottom of the pool. Utterly peaceful. And no one but a bored lifeguard to witness my humiliation. As I gradually became more adept at the crawl stroke, I realized that the truth of the matter was that I’ve really never been comfortable putting my face into the water. (Which, frankly, seems logical to me. We can’t breath underwater. It’s like ducking when someone throws a baseball at my head. You might argue that I’m bad at baseball, but I’d argue that my self-preservation instincts are more finely tuned than the average jock’s).

But still, it’s amazing what it takes to master an instinctive fear reaction. You might understand it, but it takes a long long time to desensitize yourself. You can’t logic your way out of something that’s built into your DNA. Or at least, it takes a steel will in addition to the powers of logic. I wouldn’t call it second nature, but after three years of on-again-off-again swimming in lap pools, I’ve grown pretty comfortable sticking my face into the clear, chlorinated water of a lap pool, where I can see straight to the bottom to neat rows of tiles.

But swimming in a lake? That’s a whole other story. Not only are there the perfectly rational fears of 1) putting my head underwater, and 2) accidentally swallowing a gulp of lake water, complete with god-only-knows microorganisms, but there’s a whole set of completely irrational fears, too, including 1) lake bottoms, and 2) murky water preventing me from seeing said lake bottom. “It’s just a lake. You’ll be thrashing around so much that nothing would swim up to you,” said Ben when I confessed this fear to him. But his powers of logic were no match for the strength of an irrational fear. I’m not afraid of anything so practical as a school of freshwater piranhas that just might happen to be breeding in Lake Anza (though now that I think about it, that’s pretty scary, too). It’s the fear of the unknown. Seeing down to the bottom of muddy lake bottom, murky in the dim light, objects distorted, covered in moss, half consumed by the mud and muck. Or grazing the bottom with my foot unexpectedly, the depth changing without warning, and wondering what mushy thing I just touched. Ugh. Just…ugh.

i’ve been immersed in the home-buying process all weekend; chris and teresa just bought a house in palo alto, and matt and carrie, who have decided to move to california (!!), were here for the weekend looking at houses in berekely. i was more than happy to come along and ooh and ahh over every built-in ironing board cabinet and clawfoot tub and instance of subway tile. however it’s fortunate that home-buying in this market is so very very far out of our financial reach that it’s not even tempting. so i can enjoy the process vicariously without wishing i could go out and buy a house of my own.

but it did seem to kickstart the nesting instinct just the same. after a busy weekend full of family, i was happy to come home to a quiet, clean house. relatively clean because we had house guests (thanks for giving us a reason to clean the kitchen floor, house guests!), and quiet because ben’s away at a wedding in chicago. the weather is gorgeous; i opened windows and doors and let the sunlight in and the cat out. i made bread dough, and while the dough rose in a bowl on the counter, i sat with a cup of tea and my gardening book. i made big plans, but managed to rein myself in to only executing small tasks and laying the groundwork for bigger projects today. i repotted much-neglected house plants and took new cuttings of other ones. i raked leaves out of the front garden beds and scattered cutting flower seeds. i took some “before” pictures of the back garden bed and plotted what i’d need to transform it.* (nasturtiums, poppies, dahlias, lavendar, rosemary, mint, strawberries).

certainly the strangest discovery of the day was when i was raking the dry, dusty leaf-covered front garden bed, and a few inches under the surface of the dirt i found…tiny round potatoes. huh? definitely no signs anywhere of potato plants. how did they get there? did someone scatter tiny potatoes in the yard in hopes that they would grow into plants? did the neighbors just chuck their unwanted potatoes into my garden during their last bbq? and why haven’t the potatoes rotted, or started to grow, or something, in the damp weather we’ve had for the past five months? mysterious.

i’m inspired by the idea of container gardening out of found objects rather than buying expensive pots and containers, and one of the garden book’s suggestions was to re-purpose what they called “construction bricks” — any kind of brick that has a hole in the center. it just happens that piled in the front of my yard is a stack of about a dozen cinder blocks. i put on gloves and hauled them out of the pile of weeds and dirt, stood them on end and used the hose to spray off all the dirt and spiders. (spiders!) the next step will be to figure out how to arrange them on my porch to make a tiered, multi-level container garden out of what is a solid set of concrete steps.

* earlier this year, not 24 hours after i’d planted nasturtium seeds in that particular weedy bit of ground, my neighbor pitched a couple of old mattresses and other assorted unwanted furniture out into the yard. right on top of where i’d planted seeds. where they stayed for the next two months. between that and the chainlink fence and the corrugated steel siding, we’re super classy around here.

ben’s been in Miami designing a show for the first half of this month, and given that 1) The Sparrow is one of my very favorite plays, and 2) its opening coincided with my birthday, i decided to make a quick trip out last weekend. a red-eye followed by late-morning nap, two late nights out drinking with the cast, time in the sun, sand and ocean, a city-wide transit shut down requiring an unexpected hike, fancy dinner out, and a dawn flight home meant that we were beyond exhausted by the time we got home. but it was a lovely weekend. the opening went well, and the critics and arts community in Miami were genuinely really excited about the House Theatre and their particular style of performance. and Ben’s lighting was beautiful. the next day we swam in the ocean (no one told me how fabulous the sand and water are at South Beach! even better than the beaches in Thailand*), played ultimate frisbee in the park, then went out for birthday dinner. i took this photo at dawn the morning we left, from the balcony of Ben’s 31st floor apartment.

visiting Miami: lovely. but i couldn’t imagine living there. everything felt…plastic. the women looked plastic, the 50-story apartment building was climate-controlled like it was a clean room, no one walked ANYWHERE (as evidenced by drivers’ obvious confusion when we would try to cross a street by foot). the buildings were tall and shiny and modern. nothing felt old.

we did manage to stumble across the ONLY hipster bar in all of Miami. it doesn’t have a name** so i can’t tell you where to go (in case you find yourself in need of a hipster bar in downtown Miami). i knew we were getting close when, while walking there from the theatre, a guy rode by on one of those two-story frankenbikes. inside it was no different from a dozen places in Wicker Park, but it stood out in that hipster culture and fashion seemed to be otherwise completely missing from Miami. elsewhere, the women were heavily made up, they wore fuck-me heels*** and tight dresses and carried little dogs in bags. even the men oozed sex appeal (if that’s your sort of thing). so against that canvas, a few hipsters in skinny jeans drinking PBR was…unusual. athletic, hippy berkeley women in sensible shoes and uncombed ponytails: in short supply.

* thailand post, or at the very least, photos, is still in the works, i swear.
**literally, no name: in place of a sign above the storefront, there was a lit-up blank white rectangle.
***listen, if i could walk across the room, let alone a restaurant, in fuck-me heels, you better believe i’d wear them now and then, too.

so many things i’m overdue for blogging about! and yet I’m still going to start with a post about food. these cookies are amazing. i mean, so amazing that i made a batch last month and over the next two weeks, as ben and i consumed them (parceled carefully out of the freezer one at a time to keep us from eating them all at once), we continued to congratulate ourselves, nearly every time, at being so awesome at making cookies. seriously. that good. (and we are that lame.)

most of the credit belongs elsewhere, though my tweaks (adding the chunks of chocolate, and the sea salt on top) were key to the cookie’s success. the base of the cookie comes from Best New Recipes, from Cook’s Illustrated, and i found the recipe and instructions on Smells Like Home. that version is reprinted below, with my edits.

seriously, these cookies are almost life-changing. eat them still warm (or reheated in the microwave, about 15-20 seconds per cookie), with cold milk. don’t skip over the espresso powder even though it can be a bit hard to source, as it lends an amazing depth to the chocolate flavor. you can order it here. and i don’t think i even have to say this, but: don’t mess around with cheap chocolate like nestle, hershey’s, or trader joe’s brand. go for scharffen berger or guittard. there’s a reason they cost more.

2 cups (10 oz) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (1 1/2 oz) dutch-processed cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp table salt
12 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
12 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped, separated
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp instant coffee or espresso powder
10 tbsp unsalted butter, softened but still cool
1 1/2 cups packed (10 1/2 oz) light brown sugar
1/2 cup (3 1/2 oz) granulated sugar
1/4 cup large-grain sea salt

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and 1/2 tsp table salt in a medium bowl. Whisk together; set aside.

Melt all of the semi-sweet chocolate and 4 oz of the bitter sweet chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over simmering water until completely melted and smooth; remove from the heat. In a small mixing bowl, combine the eggs and vanilla. Sprinkle the instant espresso powder over the egg mixture and set aside to allow the granules to dissolve.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 5 seconds. Mix in the sugars until well combined, about 45 seconds – the mixture will look granular. Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually beat in the egg mixture until incorporated, about 45 seconds. Add the chocolate to the bowl in a steady stream and continue beating until combined, about 40 seconds. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. With the mixer at low speed, add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated, being careful not to overbeat. Just before dry ingredients are fully incorporated, add the remaining bittersweet chocolate chips and mix them in. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until the consistency is scoopable and fudge-like, about 30 minutes.

While the dough rests, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or prep with cooking spray. Scoop the dough with an ice cream or cookie dough scoop into a 2″ diameter ball. Dip the top side of the dough into the dish of sea salt. If too much sticks, brush some of it off. I found that it worked if there was about 5 large grains per bite, maybe 25 in total, but it will vary greatly according to the salt you have. Too much will be overwhelming and too salty, not enough will fail to stand in contrast to the sweet flavors. It’s good to test the quantity of salt on a first, smaller batch and then adjust for the remaining batches. Transfer dough to the prepared baking sheets, spacing the dough balls about 1 ½ inches apart.

Bake until the edges of the cookies have just began to set but the centers are still very soft, about 10-12 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through baking. Cool the cookies on the sheets about 10 minutes then transfer to cooling racks and allow to cool completely. Cool the baking sheets before baking more batches with the remaining dough.

as i have blogged before, i’ve been working to perfect my pie crust recipe and technique for years now. The Cook’s Illustrated recipe that uses vodka (more on that below) is nearly ideal, but there was one nagging problem left: it uses Crisco, which violates all of my whole food principles. one hundred years has given Crisco a good long time to get its claws into the baking industry (according to their website, it was invented in 1911. warning signs one and two: ingredients shouldn’t be copyright-protected proper nouns, and they should be “invented” in a factory), and there are critics and foodies who swear that perfect pie crust cannot be achieved without Crisco. but i disagree. pie crust existed before Crisco. the key is in quality ingredients and rigorous technique.

so the challenge was this: replace the Crisco in the given recipe with butter, since Crisco is Not A Food, and butter, while bad for you, is at least an actual food. there may not be room for Frankenfoods in baking, but baking is still science. so science is how i tackled this problem.

Chris and Teresa gave me this awesome book called Cooking for Geeks last Christmas. think of it like Alton Brown, but with less hipster foodie, more straight up geeky science. last weekend, a page explaining why substitutions can be tricky in baking caught my eye. as an example, it compared a Joy of Cooking pie crust (which uses Crisco as the main source of far) with a Martha Stewart recipe (which uses only butter as a source of fat). though on the surface they appeared to have different quantities of water and butter/Crisco, using baker’s percentages the book demonstrated that the two recipes were nearly identical in structure. one of the keys to understanding the comparison was to know that while Crisco is 100% fat, butter is about 85% fat and 15% water.

so in my quest to de-Frankenfood my pie crust recipe, a straight substitution of butter for Crisco doesn’t work. it decreases the overall amount of fat and increases the amount of water. so i made adjustments. calculated how much butter was required to maintain the correct percentage of fat, then figured out how much extra water that brought to the recipe and decreased the water accordingly. awesome, right?

not quite awesome. i went about making the recipe, and when it was time to incorporate the liquid into the chopped butter/flour mixture, there didn’t seem to be enough liquid. great sections of it were still dry and crumbly. i ended up having to add a significant amount of water to get dough to form, which is not ideal in that it makes for stickier dough and tougher pie crust.

what went wrong? the answer popped into my head about 6am the next morning*. water. liquid. the water in the butter, though technically present in the baking process, is not accessible as a liquid when it comes to making the dough come together. though i had maintained the ratios of fat and water, i had not maintained the ratio of LIQUID. of course! that’s why it seemed so dry and crumbly.

now here’s where the Cook’s Illustrated pie crust recipe really rocks my world: it doesn’t use water as the only liquid. it uses half water, half vodka. vodka, you say? yes, vodka. here’s the secret: vodka is 60% water and 40% ethanol (80 proof). and, drum roll please, gluten doesn’t form in the presence of ethanol. though revered in the world of bread-baking, gluten is the enemy when it comes to pastry dough. so the ethanol provides extra liquid that helps pull the dough together, and then you put the crust into the oven and presto! the ethanol evaporates, leaving awesome pie crust behind with a comparatively low water content.

so, in reworking with this recipe, i had another element i could tinker with. if i wanted to maintain ratios of fat, water (both the liquid portion and the portion bound up in butter) AND liquid (the water and water/ethanol mix that is vodka), i had to adjust the amount of vodka, not just the butter and water.

an hour passed. i converted volume measurements to weights. i filled a piece of scrap paper with long-forgotten algebra, solving for multiple variables. i built a little spreadsheet to double check my math. i cut the Crisco, added more butter, decreased the water but increased the vodka. presto! all bakers’ percentages intact, but a new recipe that uses no Crisco:

Original Recipe:
*from Cook’s Illustrated

No-Crisco version:

* so sometimes i wake up at 6am thinking about pie. shut up.

watching the A Christmas Story marathon on TV has long been a family tradition. this year, spending Christmas with Ben’s family in Cleveland, I got to make a pilgrimage to the actual house. no Christmas tree in the window, just a leg lamp to light the night.

just in time for more holiday travel (ooh! body scans!), the photoset from last week’s jaunt to reno. (or, i attempt and fail to get that Magnetic Fields song out of my head all weekend.)

it has long been a goal of ben’s to traverse the entire country, coast-to-coast, by train. luckily for me he’s already covered most of it, save the leg from san francisco to reno and another short jump from cleveland to elyria (ohio, alas). so last weekend, for no reason at all except to celebrate me taking an actual two-day weekend , we grabbed the California Zephyr from our hood in berkeley and rode to reno.

it perhaps revealed to us what californians we’d become when, as the train passed through heavy snowfall over donner summit, we realized that neither of us had brought a coat. in november. to the sierras.

that pretty much relegated us to spending the remainder of our 24 hours in reno indoors, which would have been fine were it not for the casino’s stars and moon wall-to-wall carpeting and similarly garish interior decorating choices. i mean, i know that casinos are strategically designed so that you can’t find your way out or figure out what time of day it is*, but this place was like an acid trip having an acid trip. plus, let’s be honest, reno is no las vegas. the sad old people plugging quarters into slots just about breaks my heart. they don’t even look like they’re having fun. we mostly opted to stay safely tucked in our hotel room, which lacked the frolicking unicorn carpet, but was working the mirrored 80’s coke palace look quite effectively.

stay classy, reno!

*i suspect similarly nefarious tactics are employed in the makeup sales floors of major department stores. five steps in and i am utterly disoriented by the perfumy, shininess of it all and go bouncing from counter and counter unable to remember how i came in or why.